MODULAR TIMBER BOAT
RN,Brasil
A few months ago, we received the commission to design a ship that could host events while sailing the calm waters of the Lagoa das Guarairas, located in the northeast of Brazil.
The lagoon, formerly freshwater, was joined to the sea by a first artificial channel in 1890, which a tidal surge destroyed in 1924, widening it until the two bodies of water merged permanently.
This connection between waters allowed for an unusual condition in Brazil, which allows to see the sunset in the west and the moonrise in the east in the same sea, sometimes with only a few minutes of difference.
The location, barely six degrees of latitude south of the Equator, possesses the tropical characteristic that the sun rises and sets much more quickly than in other places, due to its trajectory being perpendicular to the horizon, taking very little time to cross it, causing spectacular and dramatic sunsets that attract tourist visits every afternoon.
Inspired by these unusually specific conditions of the place, we proposed a boat with a circular shape that would create a beautiful dialogue with the circumferences that form the sun and the moon as they sink and emerge from the sea in that beautiful landscape.
The construction's design compelled us to re-interpret the meaning of industrialization within the specific context of the Global South. Specifically, the coastline of Northeast Brazil—a place without a modern industry, but with an ancestral knowledge of wooden craftsmanship and an economy historically tethered to the sea.
We swiftly understood that, in the absence of modern automation machinery our path to prefab and modular construction needed to be reformulated as a form of artisanal industrialization.
This was achieved by using their savoir-faire of local people in order to establish a modular, prefab construction design by using the existing materials they mastered for generations : wood and fiberglass, complemented with modern European bolted connections.
Standardizing modular production with weights manageable by hand was essential to ensure ease of assembly and minimize risks and mistakes during construction. This approach allowed for great precision and speed during the boat final assembly.
Thus, it became vital to unify two knowledge sets deeply rooted in the history of these region :the fishing tradition and the general carpentry and naval woodworking.
Over the last year, our production was integrated into two distinct centers:
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The Timber Yard, located in a small town 15 km from the assembly site, where we built standardized modules, beams, columns , and structural elements were fabricated and shipped to the point of assembly.
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The Shipyard 250 nautical miles away from the assembly point , provided a labor force with local wisdom in fabricating catamaran hulls and pleasure craft using fiberglass. Here, we modeled and produced the fiberglass hulls onto which the platform was fixed and then navigated to the final assembly site.
Like flowers at winter, we silently pre-fabricated the pieces at both production centers , ensuring everything would converge at the point of assembly where the modules are fitting together with enormous precision, being erected quickly by local hands and without advanced machinery or cranes.
This stands what we think , that industrialization in the Global South need to combine local wisdom with craftsmanship and a rigorous construction planning strategy.
